


Vanished

by Aesops_Corpse



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Cliffhangers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:15:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23247637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesops_Corpse/pseuds/Aesops_Corpse
Summary: This is a Halloween tale and a cliffhanger written for my ESL college students in China back in 2006. It was inspired by the movie 28 Days Later. As I post this the Corona Virus is becoming pandemic and I have self-quarantined.





	Vanished

Olivia wakes up. She can hardly move; nothing more than a flick of the wrist, a finger, her ankle, her toes. But that’s about it. She even has a hard time moving her head; it’s stiff at first, but she manages to roll over—getting it back was even harder. Was she in a coma? Her muscles must have atrophy—weakened from an extensive period of inactivity. It doesn’t take her long to realize she’s in hospital. The cold, sterile walls, the gurney, and the bedpan-smell give it away. She calls out, but nobody answers. She calls out again, and again nobody answers. Frustrated she lies motionless, as if she had another choice, and realizes there are none of the usual sounds you might hear in a hospital. No beeping, blurps, or blaring alarms. No televisions squawking. No wheel-chairs squeaking. None of the toneless announcements that echo through hospital corridors and chambers. No moans and wails. No bedpans rattling. No fans whirring and no ventilation systems howling. No purring air-conditioner. No phones ringing. Silence. An eerie silence. She had never heard that before. She shifted her eyes around the room. Was it the middle of the night? The lights were out. Even the emergency lights seemed to be fading. No. Hospitals don’t empty at night. They don’t close down. If anything, they’re at their busiest at night. She tried to recall why she was in hospital. What was she doing? 

Broken glass shattered in her mind, flying into her face, into her eyes—she had shielded her face—a horrible screeching, steel twisting, bending, a horrible sucking sound, and everything suddenly collapsing, falling in on itself, and then releasing, hurdling forward, a cacophony of voices, screaming out and suddenly silenced, flashing lights, a one-eyed doll with flaxen hair sprawled out and blackened in the dust; a wicker man burning in a bon fire, fireworks bursting in brilliant green. The images erupted in her mind. She couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it. There didn’t seem to be any consecutive order in the violent memories rushing at her. Her friends surrounded her singing happy birthday, candles flickering in the dark on a double fudge chocolate cake. It was her birthday, maybe—the mantra “remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason, and plot,” resounded in her head. Her Birthday was on the same day as the national holiday. She was born on the day the infamous plot to blow up parliament was foiled, and Guy Fawkes was burned alive for his betrayal of democracy, or something like that. She was…she was, nineteen years old. How long had she been unconscious she wondered?

She lay there thinking for long time, or at least it seemed like a long time. Gradually, the feeling came back into her arms and legs. She began by wiggling her toes and turning her ankles, and then concentrated with all her mental strength on her knees and on her thighs; at the same time she flexed her fingers, opening and closing her hands. After awhile, she didn’t even concentrate anymore—she was too busy trying to recall her memories and figure out what had happened, why she was so utterly alone. Then she decided to get up, and without even thinking about it snatched the plastic breathing tubes out of her nose, and the ones sticking out of her arms that were feeding her intravenously. She willed herself to sit up. She called out again, but there was no answer. Where did everybody go? She wasn’t as frightened as she was curious. Determined to discover what happened to the world while she was sleeping she threw herself onto the floor and dragged herself across the floor. There was a wheel chair in the empty corridor. The hospital was in disarray. Everyone must have left in a great hurry, because everything appeared as though it was abandoned. A gurney lie on its side, the sheets crumpled on the floor, but there was no body. A phone hung over a desk, suspended by its cord. A paper cup of coffee sat on the desk, red lipstick smudge on the plastic cover. There was a horrible smell of piss. 

Olivia climbed into the wheelchair using all of her strength. She searched and searched for another living soul, and found nobody. In a family waiting room, a bright vaulted atrium of glass, she found a shabby newspaper that had been tossed aside, rumpled in a black synthetic chair. She picked it up and saw that it was the Guardian. The first page read, big as life, QUARANTINE? The colorful picture depicted riots in the streets, a line of police rioting squads, in their distinctive luminous green jackets with orange reflective bands. They wore gasmasks, and carried body shields that they used to hold back the mob. A child wailed, crouched on her hands and knees, in danger of being stampeded to death. Fire engulfed a car in the foreground. Big Ben watched indifferently in the background, the hands on the clock frozen at 12:59. Olivia gasped. The clock tower, its huge white enduring face, its black perpetual and imperious hands swelled in her mind. Time. Time. Time. In the picture it was frozen forever, seconds away from the thirteenth hour. Time had stopped ticking for her while she slept. It had passed for everyone else. She imagined she could hear the small ticking of a clock somewhere in the corridors of the hospital, echoing in her unraveling mind. But there was only silence, as it fell back in on her, a cacophony of voices, candles flickering in the dark, a burning wicker man in the flames, blowing out, and an eruption hurdling forward, the shattered glass falling into place, the broken seams vanishing. The end of time. Her eyes roamed over the page and found the date at the top in bold black letters. December 3rd, 2007. Mindlessly, she clutches the paper in her hand, and coasts over to the windows edge where a vast panoramic view of the city unfolds: the London sky line and the river Thames. The silent emptiness screamed at her. It was beautiful and it was terrible. A fantastic nightmare. It was an empty city. Empty of voices. Empty of laughter. Empty of song. Empty of life. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. Everyone was gone. Minutes went by and she didn’t blink. Her eyes scoured the endless windows, alleys, streets, rooftops. And still she found nothing. The sun glinted in the window, and her hand fell on the glass with a dull thump, her eyes filling with tears. She lowered her gaze into her lap, squeezing her eyes shut. She didn’t feel sad. She didn’t feel anything. She remembered the paper in her hand and slowly opened it up and began to read the article on the front page captioned, ‘Quarantine?’…


End file.
